I've been looking for some time now for a quiet and lightweight notebook. I've tried a handful already and most of them sound like a jet engine under pressure or come with otherwise poor quality components. So here's my list of requirements:

Matte 14" screen (at least 1600x900), although I can deal with 15".

2.0kg or less.

High quality speakers, camera and internal microphone.

Good quality keyboard and mousepad (smooth, not textured). I don't like integrated mousepad buttons.

Low noise under high load, no noise idling.

SDxy card reader

No Microsoft tax!

I prefer no optical drive, but it's not a big deal. I also prefer no hard drive, seeing as I have an SSD I'd like to use, but I can simply replace the stock HD if needed.I have no interest in touch screens.

My usage pattern is standard office work, so no fancy GPU is needed; iGPU will do nicely.

As far as pricing is concerned, I'd like to stay below $1500 or 1700 euros.

The only non-Windows, 14" matte screen laptop under 2kg listed there is the Thinkpad T440s, which has received glowing reviews. But I haven't liked Thinkpad keyboards, and I also don't like the integrated buttons in the mousepad. Otherwise it sounds great.

I ended up going for a Acer Aspire V5-573 with an i3-4200U, which ticked pretty much all my boxes: a matte 15" 'HD' screen, light-weight, fantastic speakers, a reasonable keyboard, and very little noise. It can be had without Windows where I live, and the whole thing comes at a most reasonable 450 euros (about $600) with tax.

The trick is that this machine comes with a i3-4200U, which is a very low power CPU and the fan rarely has to spin to dissipate its heat.

There is one thing I had to compromise on: this laptop is unfortunately styled with a mousepad with integrated buttons. When stressed (i.e., all CPU cores at 100%), the fan spins up a bit, but never to an annoying volume. Oddly enough, every now and then the fan spins up with an annoying whine for a second, then stops again, without any apparent cause. I think this might be a bug.

I hope you're right. I looked at quite a few laptops before arriving at this one. Even the same model with a more powerful Core i5 CPU is bogged down by fan noise.

In general I think laptop manufacturers are still not treating noise as a big priority, even though they now have the tools to do so without significantly increasing their costs. But the good news for consumers is that with patience they can arrive at a low-noise model.

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